And yet if you subtract expenses and institutional support from revenue, only 23 of 230 D1 schools that report finances to the NCAA make any money. If these 23 schools decided to split up the entirety of that money and give it to the 85 scholarship football players, the most they'd get would be $675,000 per year from Texas A&M ($140k average, $115k median, $1500 minimum (Michigan State)). Now this probably wouldn't be seen as fair to the other ~340 scholarship student athletes at an average D1 school (Google search shows 150k+ scholarships at the ~350 D1 schools). If we divide up the money to every scholarship student athlete they'd earn a max of $135,000 per year at Texas A&M ($28k average, $23k median, $300 minimum (Michigan State)).PintOGuinness wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:21 pm College football players generate serious revenue(esp if in a power conference) for their institutions which in many cases far outweighs the scholly amount.
Of course every other school (including the 29 other P5 schools that report finances to NCAA) could not afford to pay their student athletes even this average salary ($28k) without reducing other athletic expenditures by an average of ~$12M per year. I'm sure there's plenty of room to cut at P5 schools, but then we can't expect the norm of new apartments, locker rooms, weight rooms, and all kinds of fancy facilities.
truly benefit from the free ride. In most of the cases, the schools are losing a ton of money supporting the programs. The problem on comes up in the top football and basketball schools where the schools and coaches benefit disproportionately.